REVIEWS. 
The Teaching of Physics for Purposes of General Education. By C. Riborg 
Mann, Associate Professor of Physics, the University of Chicago. New 
York. The MacMillan Company. 1912. Pp. i:xv + 1-804. Price 
$1.25. 
The author advocates Gallic revolution rather than Germanic 
adaptation in methods of teaching physics. He believes that the 
present condition is deplorable in that high school: teaching is 
arranged on college lines and deals largely with pure science, 
though nine-tenths of the pupils never reach college. The text- 
books of our fathers were written by practical, many-sided men, 
in nonmathematical language, for the instruction of the man 
on the street. Many editions were sold even to the nonstudent 
classes. But the present-day texts are more like cut-down college 
books. They bristle with formulas. Each subject is begun with 
a page of muddling definitions. In the laboratory the experi- 
ments are mostly overfine, wearisome measurements of constants 
or verifications of abstruse laws. 
The author traces the origin of the trouble to the door of the 
colleges. Though their entrance requirements and inspections 
have brought order out of chaos, to them it is due that high 
school work is planned with reference to college entrance rather 
than to the needs of the pupils. The teachers, affected by the 
" research fad, have pushed exact measurement, and have given the 
whole work a college-like content. 
He believes that the remedy lies in bringing the classroom 
_ teaching into closer touch with the daily life of the boy. The 
texts should be purged of formulas. In illustrations and prob- 
lems only things concrete to the student should be used. Defi- 
nitions should not be given at the beginning of a treatment, but 
at the end after many simple illustrations have made the mat- 
ter clear. Here is a specimen of a formula-free examination 
question which he suggests. 
“Write after each word some fact which it suggests to you. 
“work time wave square 
“positive light level change 
etc.” 
It is doubtful whether most teachers are capable of devising 
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